- By Ash
- in Reviews
Usually city-builders want you to kick back, chillax, and just watch the taxes roll in. But not Against the Storm. It wants you to suffer... which is an insane way to sell a game to someone. I mean, the trees want to strangle you and your boss is a phoenix god who will fire you - and I have to emphasize the fire - if morale drops too low. So why did I spend over fifty hours with it these past two weeks? Well, as I found out, there is a surprisingly addictive pleasure to be found in the pain.
When you don't even know what buildings and tools you'll be able to use in each mission, something weird happens with your brain. You stop thinking about creating a mathematically optimal beaver labor camp and just start working miracles with whatever garbage you have on hand. And then, five hours later, you'll finally wake up from your trance and realize it's 3 in the morning and you have to get up for work soon.
- By Ash
- in Reviews
Twenty-two minutes. That's exactly how long you have before the sun goes supernova, everyone you know and love is turned into dust, and you wake up back at your campfire roasting the world's crispiest marshmallows.
In most games, falling head-first into a black hole or trying to tap-dance on a cactus would be an obvious mistake. But Outer Wilds encourages you to be curious. This is a game with no loot to find, no XP to grind, and no gear to upgrade. Your only currency is information - and your only objective is to figure out why the universe is ending before the clock hits zero again.
This focus on curiosity over stats creates a very unique form of progression. If you know exactly what to do and where, you could finish the entire game in under 10 minutes. But you don't. So instead, you're forced to step into your rickety, wooden spaceship and fly into the unknown - trying one insane idea after another just to see which ones kill you the slowest, all the while piecing together a cosmic puzzle that spans an entire solar system!
- By Ash
- in Reviews
Project Zomboid's Build 41 didn't so much launch in December 2021, as it did explode onto the scene. New animations, vastly better immersion, and actually functional multiplayer - it was the update that turned Zomboid from a cult classic into a full-blown juggernaut. In that single month, the playerbase skyrocketed to seven times its previous size!
So naturally, expectations for Build 42 were sky-high. What's going to happen next? How could they possibly top this? The community was beyond excited, and then... nothing.
- By Ash
- in Reviews
Total War: Warhammer 3 had a rough launch. Rough enough that the tutorial was the best part of the game - and no, that's not a joke. The tutorial mini-campaign genuinely felt more polished and more coherent than whatever the February 2022 version of the Realms of Chaos was trying to be. It's honestly kind of wild looking at the game we have today and remembering just how poorly it all started.
Now normally this is where the music swells and I tell you how the game's redemption arc got started, but Warhammer 3 didn't get a redemption arc. At least not yet.
- By Ash
- in Reviews
Moonlighter 2 is an indie roguelite that lets you wield the most dangerous magic known to mankind: capitalism. You dive into monster-infested ruins not to save the world, but to grab every shiny object that isn’t nailed down so you can resell it at your cozy little shop.
The big twist is that Moonlighter 2 is actually three games stapled together. It's a fast-paced action-roguelite, an inventory management puzzle game, and a shop sim where you have to convince people to buy burnt sticks and old wires for absurd prices.
It’s a ridiculous setup, but as I've found out over the past week, it’s also one that's a lot of fun. So let me show you how Moonlighter 2 juggles all of this at once... and what happens when a ball inevitably hits the floor.
- By Ash
- in Reviews
Dispatch is the only game that can go from dick-punching supervillains to genuinely heartwrenching character drama in the same scene - and somehow land both perfectly. It's gorgeously animated, effortlessly funny, and mature in a way that doesn't feel like it was written by edgy teenagers who just discovered swear words.
Dispatch is the kind of game you finish and then sit there going "okay, WHO do I throw money at to get more of this?" And that's not hyperbole either - I genuinely want a sequel, prequel, and maybe even a breakfast cereal. So let me show you why this Telltale-style superhero comedy hooked me so hard - and don't worry, I won't spoil anything. That would be criminal, and I've seen what the heroes do to those!
- By Ash
- in Reviews
Imagine being stuck in a 47-minute time loop where the main way to push forward is through therapy sessions. That's Rue Valley - a psychological RPG that's as much about solving a mystery as it is about confronting your own crippling anxiety. It wears its Disco Elysium influences proudly, yet still manages to carve out its own identity through intimate, grounded storytelling.
And while the pacing hits a wall in the middle, Rue Valley is rich with deep, emotional stories about mundane people buckling under the weight of ordinary problems - stories that feel very real and uncomfortably familiar. I'm sure we've all had sleepless nights where we just stared at the ceiling wondering where our lives are going, and Rue Valley does a tremendous job of exploring all of those mixed emotions.
- By Ash
- in Reviews
What does a bat, an axolotl, a gecko and a pangolin have in common? Correct! You can stuff all of them into a cannon, light a dozen sticks of dynamite, and then blast them straight into a tornado. They also happen to be the main characters in Windblown - a roguelite that's so fast-paced your fingers are at risk of falling off, and one with so many unique items it actually lets you ban dozens of them just so you can see them all.
Combine that with an absolutely insane world, and you've got yourself a game with some serious Dead Cells vibes - which isn't too surprising since it comes from the same team! And in true Dead Cells fashion, Windblown wastes absolutely no time before throwing you a pair of laser-hands and sending you to crash a New Year's party run by pirates - that is rats, who are also pirates.
But you don't have to laser a bunch of animals if that's not your thing. You can also stab them with pointy sticks, crush them with gigantic swords, set them on fire, cover them in gloop, or if you're feeling a bit spicy, even just eat them!
- By Ash
- in Reviews
Vampires used to be horrifying, bloodthirsty monsters, but somewhere along the way they turned into brooding prettyboys that stalk schoolgirls. V Rising says 'no' to all of that nonsense.
Here, you are a proper vampire - a true villain. You burn in sunlight, you eat people, and you even put pineapple on your pizza! But being the bad guy does come with some great perks. You get a cool coffin to sleep in, a pile of magical weapons, and even a swarm of... um, 'interns' to do all of your busywork.
- By Ash
- in Reviews
Daimon Blades is a brutally fast hack-and-slash roguelite set in the wonderfully weird universe of E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy. You know you’re in for a wild ride when the game opens with a thesaurus explaining what the hell its name even means, then immediately dumps you into actual hell to fend off hordes of demons. Much like E.Y.E., it’s janky and cryptic, but also endlessly fascinating.
Hey folks, I’m Ash, and let me show you what Daimon Blades has to offer, where it excels, and also where it stumbles.